1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent
social groups or issues?
Our commercial was on the business Gatorade, which sells sports drinks, bars, chewables, and
more. These products help to energize and fuel athletes, usually during training or before a big
competition. Because of this, the commercials usually have athletes doing their sport and
drinking the Gatorade drink or eating the energy bar to perform to the best of their abilities. A
very common Gatorade commercial I’ve seen is with a popular basketball player. He is usually
in a dark gym, with lights shining on him. He drinks the Gatorade and performs extremely well.
If there is a crowd, they usually go wild, when he wins or makes the shot. Unlike other Gatorade
commercials, our commercial had 3 athletes performing different workouts. We did this to prove
that Gatorade can be used for a variety of different athletes. Most of the Gatorade commercials
on tv also tend to only be advertising their very popular drinks. We decided to change that and
use 3 different products. These included a Gatorade drink, a Gatorade energy bar, and a
Gatorade chewable. Doing this allowed us to show that all of its products can fuel athletes and
make them do their best. We started off by the athletes all stretching and getting ready for their
assigned workout. After they drank their product, they were able to shine in their workout. The
person that ran ended up winning the race, the person that was stretching did the best pushups,
and the person that did a regular handstand was able to do a roundoff-back handspring. This
proves that Gatorade products are able to make you work to the best of your abilities. We used
conventions by following most commercials with athletes but we challenged it by using more
workouts and more products.
During our commercial, we were able to represent social groups and issues. Since we used more
then just one type of workout, we were able to show that there are a lot of different athletes, not
just the conventional basketball, football, and baseball players. In our script/voiceover, we also
included that anyone of any race, gender, religion, and more are able to express themselves. We
included this to show that Gatorade is non-exclusive and can work for anyone. We were able to
tackle any issues in sexism, racism, and more. We used women in our commercial, which proves
that athletes are more than just men, but also powerful women. People nowadays get easily
offended if not everyone is included. Having women in our commercial shows that Gatorade
can be for a wide range of people. We also wrote that Gatorade is the fuel for everyone’s
devotion. Saying everyone instead of “men” or “athletes” shows that everyone can be energized
and powered by Gatorade’s products. We were able to represent the social issue of sexism and
that women can be athletes too.
2.) How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?
People will want to watch the entirety of our commercial for many reasons. One of the reasons
is because of what we are selling. Because we are selling a product that is used by many, a lot of
people will pay attention. People will also want to keep watching because we are selling many
products, rather than 1. Unlike most Gatorade commercials, we show that we have many
different products, which are all very useful. One of the actors were also able to do a
roundoff-backhand spring. That may sound weird but I think that would keep people watching
until the end of the commercial because a lot of people think gymnastics tricks are very cool and
entertaining. By the time they are hooked on to all of these things, the commercial is already
done or at least the showing of the products is. People also like to watch Gatorade commercials
because they’re entertaining due to the cool tricks that the athletes do. We have that factor with
the gymnast and the track star winning the race. Selling other products also ups our chance of
people watching the whole commercial because they aren’t used to the other products so they’ll
want to watch it and see what the products are about.
We would distribute this to real media on a lot of different TV channels. Our main channel
would be ESPN because it is a sports channel. Putting our commercial on this channel will
allow it to go towards its intended audience, athletes. We would also probably put it on news
channels. We would not put it on kids’ channels, like Disney, or on a channel like HGTV, where
the main audience is people that don’t work out. Advertising to a group of people that don’t
normally workout or would need energy boosters is pointless because then money is just being
wasted on people that won’t buy the product. If we advertise to a group of people that workout
or are more likely to work out, the product will better sell. It’s useless to sell to kids, like on
Disney channel, because kids are not in control of what they buy and they don’t need energy
drinks or food products. This marketing strategy will get Gatorade the most money due to
proper advertising to the right group that would actually be interested in the products. A good
idea is to advertise during a women’s game. If we advertise during a WNBA (Women’s National
Basketball Association), there’s a high chance you would get a lot of buyers because our
commercial includes women athletes and empowers them. It will be produced in the highest
quality to assure that you can tell what our commercial is selling and so people trust what is
being sold. People are more likely to want to buy from a commercial that is clear and the best
quality than something that is blurry and doesn’t seem professionally filmed.
3.) How did your production skills develop throughout this process?
During this process, I learned a lot about media in general, filming, editing, and more. The main
thing I learned is that in everything you watch, no matter how long it is, a lot of work goes into
it. Even if a commercial seems like it was easy to film and didn’t take long, the planning process
took a lot of time. When planning to film anything, you have to storyboard the whole thing.
About every six seconds is one box of the story so for a 30-second commercial, you have to
storyboard by five or more times. You also have to present your idea to producers. When you’re
presenting a product, you have to have a storyboard ready and a plan of distribution ready. This
means that you have to tell them how you will get your commercial out of the public and if it
will be successful towards the intended audience. Another thing I learned is that while filming,
you have to take a lot into account. This includes things like weather, if you’re outside, and
actors. If the weather is supposed to be sunny and it’s cloudy outside, you have to have another
plan of action to make sure that your commercial still comes out to the best of its ability. One of
our actors forgot their clothes for filming but luckily for us, another actor had extra clothes and I
was able to take the place of the actor who forgot their clothes. This taught us to always have a
backup plan. We are very lucky that Katherine happened to have extra clothes because now we
know for next time to always have back up clothes. I also learned how to work with the group,
especially one with a variety of different ideas about how did the final product should look and
be enforced. Although this process and working with a group was hard, in the end, we were all
able to agree on how we wanted to film and ended up liking the final product anyway.
Even with all the preparation, I did like the process of making a commercial. It was fun going
out and filming and letting our creative juices flow. The creativity allowed for our commercial
to be the best we could make it and made it so we had fun while doing so. It was very hot
outside while we were filming but this allowed for the best lighting. We learned a lot about
lighting and how to make it so there are minimal shadows, which was fun to learn. I also like
the editing process. This process was long and kind of hard but it was amazing to be able to see
all of our hard work finally be put together. Personally, I didn’t like the storyboarding process. I
have very little artistic ability so if I had to do this alone, this would’ve been very hard for me. I
do understand, however, why it is so important to do the whole process. Another thing I didn’t
like was the research part. We chose to do the Gatorade commercial because we knew a lot
about those types of commercials so the research part just felt like we were doing extra work
for no reason. I do understand, however, why it would be important if we were filming a
commercial that we did not know a lot about. Another thing I did like, though, was the part
where we got to choose what we wanted our commercial to be on. I think this part of the process
got us to think about the different commercials we have seen and what we think would be able
to execute the best. This allowed my group and I to think about the things we had (clothes,
shoes, drinks, etc.,) and decided what would be easiest for us. Because we have four people in
our group, this process was a little tedious but in the end, we definitely chose the best option for
our group.
4.) How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project?
During the process of making our commercial we had to use and learn to use a lot of different types of
technology. To film our commercial we had to use a camera and all the information was stored in an SD
card. Even though Ms. Cats had SD cards, we decided to use our own. If someone else used our SD
card, they could have deleted the work so to not be put or almost put in that situation, we decided it was
best for us to have our own card. We had to learn how to put the SD card in the camera. We also had to
learn how to insert and transfer its files onto the computer and pinnacle studios. We used the camera to
film but first Ms. Cats had to teach us how to do it because for some people that was their first time
ever using or even touching a camera. It was really fun for me to use the camera because I have always
loved filming things and taking photos. The camera was hard to use at first just because I had to make
sure I was holding it correctly and make sure that the lighting was good and things like that. It got easier
in the end and our product came out well. Another thing we used was Pinnacle Studios. This was the
program we used to edit because we were using windows computers/laptops. This program was really
easy to use and it was fun learning how to edit on it. We will be using it a lot in this class, so I’m glad
we got to learn how to use it so early in the year and we’ll be prepared for the next few months in the
class. People with their own Apple laptops choose to use iMovie. Most people that used iMovie,
however, knew how to use it before and didn’t need the schooling we needed. We liked using Pinnacle
Studios because Ms. Cats taught us how to do it and we knew that we would be able to ask her questions
about it. Another thing Ms. Cats taught us how to do was edit a split-screen. She didn’t teach the class
because most groups weren’t doing one but we wrote in our storyboard that we wanted to. Since we
wrote it in our storyboard, we didn’t think it would look good to steer so far away from it and not do it.
Ms. Cats was very helpful during our whole project and even though she doesn’t count as “technology,”
she was very helpful in making our commercial the best. We had to use the computers to edit and blog.
When they didn’t work, the school gave us new laptops so we were able to edit and be successful in this
computer-based class. Editing on a computer that didn’t work wouldn’t have been easy and we wouldn’t
have been very successful. Even though they gave us laptops, there were not enough for everyone in the
class to use one. Because of this, if we had to blog, we did so on our phones. This was new to me
because I’m not used to writing documents on my phone. Any school and/or important document, I type
out on my laptop. It was cool learning how to use my phone for things other than just games and talking
to friends. From the process of making a commercial, I learned a lot. I used a lot of new technology and
even used technology I knew about to do things I didn’t know I could.
